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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

“By 1980s, the Communist System of Soviet Union was incapable of maintaining the country’s role as a Superpower.” Substantiate.

  • UPSC 2017
  • Disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Rise of the Unipolar World

By the 1980s the Soviet Union was attempting to simultaneously fight a costly war, subsidise an entire bloc of satellite states, and match a renewed American arms race — commitments no single economy could sustain together.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Afghanistan War as a Self-Inflicted Quagmire
  • The Cost of Empire: Subsidising the Warsaw Pact and Eastern Europe
  • The Reagan-Era Arms Race and the Strategic Defense Initiative
  • Loss of Ground in the Developing World
  • The Feedback Loop: Imperial Retreat and Domestic Disintegration

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